


You Still Love Him

by Truly_Happy



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Adoption, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Gen, Infertility, M/M, Marriage, Menopause
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-16
Updated: 2017-11-16
Packaged: 2019-02-03 07:19:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12743637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Truly_Happy/pseuds/Truly_Happy
Summary: In which Alex gets married, and John is depressed





	You Still Love Him

The night of the wedding, as Laurens watches Alex dance with his new bride “So you’ve landed a Schuyler,” Hercules had laughed, slapping Alex on the back. Alex had chuckled nervously 

“So it seems I have.” He replied, eyes of John, who sits by Laf, sipping on a beer. 

 

“John,” He tries, later, when John is drunk and Laf and Herc have gone home.

“Don’ touch me.” John slurs, shrugging off Alex’s hand

“John, please, just listen-” 

“No, Alex.” John says “You listen: I’m never going to get married. I’m never going to get married, because who on earth would love somebody like me?” They don’t elaborate on what ‘someone like me’ means. There is only lips crashing together. Skin against skin and John drowns in regret later. 

 

“You still love him, don’t you?” His Martha, his best friend since childhood, asks, quietly, once they’ve gotten in the car and are driving home. 

“I don’t know what you mean.” John says, stiffly

“Jackie, don’t be like that.” Martha says gently,

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He repeats. A bit harsher this time, and Martha can see the stormclouds in his eyes. She is silent for the rest of the trip back home. 

 

Later, John marries Martha. They’ve been best friends for years, and it’s not like he actually loves her like that or anything (and he’s sure that she doesn’t love him like that either.) The circumstances that lead to their marriage are long and convoluted. But in any case, it starts with Martha going to the hospital. 

“Martha, holy shit, are you okay?” John asks into the phone, two months after Alexander’s wedding. A bit of the initial shock has worn off. The anger and jealousy, less so. 

“John.” There’s a pause. One minute, then two pass, and John wonders if Martha’s still there. “John,” She says again, and there’s a deep, heavy sob. “I’m going through menopause.” John freezes up for a moment. The statement takes him by surprise. 

“Martha, you’re twenty-six. You can’t be going through menopause.” She’s sobbing even harder now.

“The doctors- the doctors say it’s called ‘early-onset menopause.’ I can’t have kids John. I can’t have kids.” She goes on like that for a while. Repeating things. And John listens, because she listened when he showed up at her house after Alex announced his engagement. He also knows that Martha has wanted a baby ever since she was a little kid. The very concept of being a mother had always fascinated her in the same way that art and turtles fascinated John. Children were her passion, so the fact that she could never have any of her own should have come as a terrible shock. It is at that moment that the seed of thought plants itself in his mind. 

It is one week later, when he’s with Martha, who’s curled up on her couch drinking what he can only assume is hot chocolate mixed with peppermint schnapps. 

“Hey, Martha, you really want a kid, right?” She shoots him a glare.

“Yeah. And I just learned I can’t ever have any.” She says, bitterly

“Not if you adopt.” John says, and Martha rolls her eyes

“John, I’m a single college graduate living in a tiny apartment. They’d never give me a kid.” 

“Unless you married the son of a Georgia politician with a 401k at twenty-five and a fortune to his name.” Martha looks at him, eyes shining. 

“John, are you sure about this?” She asks, cautiously. 

“Martha, I’m sure. Not like my life is going anywhere anyways.” He says. 


End file.
